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A Few Questions

Ok, so I bought this game a while ago. I tried it out, but I found it a bit too complex to easily learn so I didn't play it too much. I did the normal thing - starting in Ireland to learn the basics. After that I had a fairly successful game as the Piasts of Poland before moving to other things. I stopped playing while the education bug existed, and haven't gotten back to it until now. So I have a few questions:

1) How do you deal with pagans? I remember it being a lot easier, but now with the religious CB others can join in, and they usually have fairly big armies. I tried as the Piasts and the Novgorodan Rurikovich family and almost got beaten by them a few times (though with the Rurikovichs family alliances help out a lot).

2) What's the best way to unite the Russian states? I tried starting as the Duke of Novgorod and changed succession to seniority (and perhaps because of that my wife later tried to poison me). But my father died before me, and my titles ended up passing to a landless uncle known as "the bewitched" who had the kinslayer trait. After that all my family members basically dogpiled me. In another attempt, the same thing happened even with a more favorable heir.

3) What's the best way to expand as Poland? Pagans seem to be a lot harder, and the HRE and Scandinavian states are as aggressive as ever.

4)What should I focus on as England? This was my most recent attempt, and I was actually doing fairly well until I got stuck in a bad regency and quit after dealing with maybe four fairly major rebellions (I won them all, but it was getting tiresome).

5) As the king of England I had a weird situation where I switched to high authority to avoid titles passing out of the kingdom. The Duke of Cornwall rebelled, and during the rebellion one of his counties passed to the Scottish duke of Lothain. Was that because he rebelled so crown laws briefly didn't apply?

Yeah, my questions are all about different nations. I'm not sure who to start my next attempt as yet.

1. If they're truly a problem, take them apart piecemeal. Fabricating claims and warring for one county at a time is a good way to circumvent religious intervention. Beyond that, I'd say wait a generation or two to build up crown authority and province improvements before taking them on.

2. You could always try Kiev or Galich. They're deeply engrained within the families, and are often set to inherit large swaths of land. A few assassinations could net you the entire land of Rus in under fifty years.

3. Northwards towards the Pagans, or Eastwards against the Russians and Cumans. Doubly-so if they get taken over by the Mongolians. If the Muslims are very successful against the Byzantines, you could also try expanding into the Greek areas.

4. Depends on how you want to do it! You could either become Emperor of Britannia. Or, if you're playing as the Normans and still hold Normandy, you could attempt to unite the crowns of England and France. Wouldn't be too hard.

What are good steps to expanding as England? I started fabricating claims in lower Wales, and I took Brittany through a claim war (one of my dukes had a claim on it) but I then found out that both of those kingdoms require Celtic culture to create. Should I allow my heir to be tutored by a Breton (Celtic) even though that will lower relations with my (mostly) Norman vassals until the next king (who will presumably be Norman)? Also, how do I get more piety? Kingdoms take 200 to form, and I don't see any ways other than waiting a long time (aside from waiting for a crusade).

My long term goals are to hold all the British kingdoms (getting Wales, Scotland, and Ireland). Ireland seems to be pretty divided, so I think I'd have to either get some good claimants (to larger duchies) or fabricate claims (with individual counties, probably, if necessary). Once I have half I can use de jure wars, but getting there is the tricky part. Scotland is more powerful, and I think I would get it most easily without war. I can easily get Scotland's heir to marry one of my daughters, but I don't know if that helps. Even if it was a matrilinear (is that the right word?) marriage the titles wouldn't go to me, and switching to seniority to consolidate titles could take a while. I also want France, though I assume it's a similar question with it.

As a side note, I tried starting another game in England and took the southern county belonging to Scotland (in the North Umberland ducky). Again, it passed to a Scottish duke without any notification to me, and this time it wasn't while the duchy was rebelling. Again, I had high crown authority so that shouldn't be possible. Am I missing something?

I think I've figured out the smaller management aspects of the game. I know how to manage my denense to get money, appease my vassals, and wage smaller wars (e.g. religious or through fabricated claims). But the larger political maneuvering to take countries without war is escaping me.

Should I allow my heir to be tutored by a Breton (Celtic) even though that will lower relations with my (mostly) Norman vassals until the next king (who will presumably be Norman)?
Seems a bit extreme to me, unless you're really desperate for that king title. What happens if your Breton heir ends up ruling for 60 years and half your vassals convert to Breton culture too, while England starts changing from Saxon to English? And remember, if you've built any cultural buildings, you'll lose them when you change culture.

What you could do is give the entire de jure kingdom of Brittany to a Breton younger son as Duke, and see whether he forms the kingdom himself on his own initiative. Of course he'd need the money and piety too, and he'll become independent of you unless you've become Emperor of Britannia in the meantime; but you could always reconquer the kingdom afterwards using a claim.

Also, how do I get more piety?
Buy an indulgence from the Pope. Create a new bishopric. Attack a pagan or Muslim nation using a Holy War CB, and conquer their lands.

On a more general note: I don't think there are many quick and easy ways for a Christian monarch to expand against other Christian kingdoms. You have to nibble away at them slowly with fabricated or de jure claims to single counties, and keep scanning them every so often to see if there are any claimants to larger entities whom yo can lure to your court and give a minor title to. It's worthwhile keeping an eye on any civil wars or revolts taking place in neighbouring countries; when one side wins, the other side will often be reduced to several dispossessed former-rulers or heirs with claims.

And is there no easier way to take a kingdom than one county at a time or getting lucky with a claimant (who might declare independence once he gets the crown...)?

Assimilation from Norman and Saxon to English begins if -any- Saxon ruler has a Norman liege. That in mind, I'd say that converting to Breton purely for the sake of two titles seems a little unnecessary. If you really want, just hold the de jure land of both titles for a hundred years. It'll assimilate to de jure England.

And afraid not, unfortunately. The name of the game, in regards to expansion against Christians, is "nibble nibble nibble"

Assimilation from Norman and Saxon to English begins if -any- Saxon ruler has a Norman liege. That in mind, I'd say that converting to Breton purely for the sake of two titles seems a little unnecessary. If you really want, just hold the de jure land of both titles for a hundred years. It'll assimilate to de jure England.

And afraid not, unfortunately. The name of the game, in regards to expansion against Christians, is "nibble nibble nibble"

The main thing I wanted was the titles. So it would be "So and so, emperor of Britannia, King of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Brittany...". The prestige for the kingdoms would be nice too. Maybe I will switch to Breton, just to make things interesting.

Originally Posted by StephenT

There's the invasion CB, if the other kingdom is larger than your own. It models what William the Bastard did to England in 1066.

But real-life mediaeval history is full of examples of rulers not conquering entire kingdoms at a time. The few exceptions can pretty much be accounted for by the existing rules.

I was just trying to find out how people end up getting multiple kingdoms and such in a short time span. Maybe I'm just not patient enough. I am admittedly more used to EU3, where expansion is bit faster.